Kyle Shanahan admits 49ers might not currently have Week 1 kicker

NFL

By Bryan Fonseca

August 27, 2023 | 8:29pm

As Week 1 looms, the San Francisco 49ers, who hardly had a quarterback in the NFC Championship Game, don’t appear to have a healthy kicker.

The team allowed long-time kicker and 40-year-old Robbie Gould to walk in free agency and pivoted to drafting former Michigan kicker Jake Moody with a third-round pick at No. 89 overall in April.

That was one month after trading for Carolina Panthers kicker Zane Gonzalez in exchange for conditional draft picks.

But now, both are injured.

Moody is dealing with a strained quad from practice on Wednesday, and Gonzalez has a right calf injury he suffered on Friday.

“That’s week-to-week right now,” said Shanahan regarding Moody’s injury, specifically. “We’re hoping that he can have a chance for Week 1. He ended up straining his quad last week in practice. We’ll see how his body reacts to it.” 

Shanahan went on to acknowledge that the team may have to bring in a kicker for Week 1 given the current state of the position in San Francisco.

With Gonzalez out, Shanahan was asked if the team would be looking to bring in another kicker for the Week 1 game in Pittsburgh. 

“We most likely have to,” Shanahan replied. “We definitely got to have a plan B for Week 1. Zane could have been that, but he’s probably not going to be ready for Week 1, looking at what happened to him.”

Gould long had the 49ers kicking position locked down, having played for the team from 2017 through last season.

Gould wasn’t brought back despite initially wanting to return to San Francisco, according to NFL.com.

“I would’ve loved to have gone back there,” Gould said last month. “I told them I wanted to go back there. We never got an offer from the team and we never had a conversation about coming back.”

Shanahan was asked about bringing in Gould and was non-committal.

“I’m sure everyone’s a possibility, but that’s stuff we haven’t discussed yet,” Shanahan answered.

Moody was expected to be the team’s starting kicker going into the season.

The rookie became, in the last 15 years, just the second kicker selected within the top 100 picks, joining Florida State star kicker Roberto Aguayo who flamed out of the NFL.